Mere weeks away from the Finnish national elections, the parties about to win had set their mind on banning the combustion engine. Bad news for Neste, the world’s leading producer of renewable fuels and major fuel retailer in Finland. Also bad for reaching climate targets, since electric vehicles alone weren’t going to cut emissions fast enough. Liquid fuels were needed to achieve cuts fast enough. Time was ticking in every sense.

The public affairs objective was to enable the future government to deflect from banning the combustion engine. However, this would have to happen in a way that built Neste’s climate-driven brand and stayed true to its purpose of creating a healthier planet for our children.

This would need to hurt a bit before we could bring forth the advantages of the combustion engine. So we subjected Neste’s CEO, along with respected opinion leaders in climate change and public discussion, to a polygraph test – more commonly known as a lie detector. A professional was flown in from the UK, and a known film director was hired to ramp up the drama.

We would need to show that any one simple answer to climate change was set to fail painfully, and that all solutions would need to be utilized immediately. We would need to hear it from people who could sway our end target audience, the upcoming ministers. We would need to hear what they thought should happen during the next government’s term, and hear it in a way that cut through all the other election noise – a moment of truth.